Awatea '91

Awatea Cabernet/Merlots '16

A wine that exhibits the best qualities of great Hawke’s Bay cabernets/merlot - intense aromatic berry fruit characters, a rich mid-palate and a supple tannin structure. Awatea is a full flavoured wine that can be enjoyed over 8-10 years.

Technical Analysis

Winemaking

The grapes, drawn from several blocks close to the winery, were hand-harvested, then fermented in individual lots using techniques such as cap plunging and extended maceration.

Following pressing the wine was aged for nineteen months in 225 litre barrels, half of them new, during which time it was progressively blended.

Vineyards

1991 Awatea Cabernet/Merlot was harvested between the 4th and the 26th April.

Origin

Awatea takes its name from the legendary ship SS Awatea (a Maori word meaning ‘Eye of the Dawn’) that sailed the Auckland - Sydney - Wellington route in the late 1930’s. The Awatea was requisitioned as a troop transport in WWII and was sunk off Algeria in 1942.